A past issue brought up on this thread that I have not really thought about is how to bring a clean and decisive end to the game. - Where there is a clear winner and so the losing side doesn’t just capitulate when the situation is hopeless. Personally, I don’t believe it is possible to do this in a satisfactory way for Axis & Allies. All the relevant board games I can think of have the same characteristic. Monopoly, Stratego, Chess, Risk… it often comes to the point where you can project a winner with great certainty. So the losing side quits rather than prolong the inevitable. Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with this. Heck that is what Japan did… the Allies didn’t even have to invade, all they had to do was show they were more than capable.
The only way a clean victory could happen is if both sides are motivated enough to still be playing, thinking they have a chance at eventually winning. The only way I can think of doing this in Axis & Allies would be something akin to the Minor Victory option, but where nobody has to take one of the major capitals to win. The quickest way for one side to quit the game is when capitals are taken: your money is gone and your production capacity is wrecked. That is a massive setback and is very difficult to recover from without immediate outside help.
The reason my group never plays Minor Victory is that it doesn’t mean very much. There is still a lot of game left to be played and no Power is necessarily out of contention.
The Soviets were determined to take Berlin, and the Western Allies let them do so to some degree because the USSR ‘earned it’. But even before the atomic bombs were dropped, Stalin was concerned that the Western Allies were going to wrap up the war against Japan without the USSR. There were huge swaths of territory in Manchuria and the Pacific that Stalin was set on obtaining… the USSR even continued fighting after Japan ceased fighting on Aug 16. (See Operation August Storm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria) The invasion of Manchuria boggles the mind due to the speed and scale of operations; the Soviets overran a defended and geographically difficult area the size of the entire Western European theater in under 20 days.
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All of this is a side-note, but my goal for a 4-Team game would be to create the kind of desperate competition to outmaneuver both the Axis enemies and your Allied counterpart to obtain more territory and influence in the post-war world. That is how the Allies would be judged to have won. I do think it will intrinsically address the annoying Japan-to-Moscow tank run also.
I’m wondering if this could also somehow be used to deal with some of the game issues that have been raised regarding China. The rapid crumbling of Japan’s position in China in 1945 was caused in part by the Soviet-Mongolian invasion and in part by the fact that the Chinese themselves started to make serious progress when the deteriorating situation in the Pacific led Japan to get reinforcements by tapping its forces in China, specifically the Kwantung Army. Furthermore, China had its own anticipating-the-Cold-War problem during WWII because Sun’s Nationalists and Mao’s Communists seemed at times less concerned about fighting the Japanese than in positioning themselves for a resumption of their interrupted civil war.
I will say that your 3-phases seems more like an analysis of game-war progression rather than a ‘system’ to be implemented.
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A past issue brought up on this thread that I have not really thought about is how to bring a clean and decisive end to the game <<
I’m tying the two above sentences together because my answer relates to both.
My three-phase analysis did actually have an implementable-system component to it: the economic-adjustement tables that I’d proposed. My argument was that the macroeconomic situation of the various WWII combatant nations changed in some fairly clear ways over the three major phases of the war, and that the tables could be used to simulate these changes in the game. Those changes, in turn, might have important effects on the IPC strength of the two sides as the game progresses. So I wasn’t just giving an abstract description of the course of the war; I was proposing a system that would (to give just one example) ensure that Japan would be dealing with a major IPC cash crunch late in the war, and therefore to give Japan a strong incentive to win early.
One related aspect of the three-phase analysis that I didn’t really make explicit was the potential idea of having victory conditions which change during the war rather than remaining constant. I haven’t thought about that one in detail, but it might be something to explore to address the “clean end” issue you mentioned.
@CWO:
I’m wondering if this could also somehow be used to deal with some of the game issues that have been raised regarding China.� The rapid crumbling of Japan’s position in China in 1945 was caused in part by the Soviet-Mongolian invasion and in part by the fact that the Chinese themselves started to make serious progress when the deteriorating situation in the Pacific led Japan to get reinforcements by tapping its forces in China, specifically the Kwantung Army.� Furthermore, China had its own anticipating-the-Cold-War problem during WWII because Sun’s Nationalists and Mao’s Communists seemed at times less concerned about fighting the Japanese than in positioning themselves for a resumption of their interrupted civil war.�
I think it could. I haven’t thought much about China in terms of how they are played other than the musing of whether or not the Nationalists and Communists should be represented instead of one, undifferentiated Chinese force.
I am going to reserve judgement on that based on if we can do it in an easy-to-integrate and simple-to-play way. What I really want to avoid is adding more separate countries or neutrals. In my view, they slow down play and the political aspect gets more complicated. I don’t know how it works in HBG’s Global War, but from reading the rules it looks like there are a slew of minor powers and neutrals.
Breaking up China in two wouldn’t necessarily ruin gameplay though. It could be rather interesteing and add to the Western Allies vs Soviet dynamic. The Soviet player could control the Communist Chinese and the US/UK control the Nationalists. They could work together if so desired but would otherwise be independent and able to occupy territory and gather resources independently. This would aid, I believe, in slowing down Japan’s progress through China and into the Soviet Union because the player for the USSR would effectively have their own Chinese infantry/artillery force to strategically oppose Japan with.
@CWO:
My three-phase analysis did actually have an implementable-system component to it: the economic-adjustement tables that I’d proposed. My argument was that the macroeconomic situation of the various WWII combatant nations changed in some fairly clear ways over the three major phases of the war, and that the tables could be used to simulate these changes in the game. Those changes, in turn, might have important effects on the IPC strength of the two sides as the game progresses. So I wasn’t just giving an abstract description of the course of the war; I was proposing a system that would (to give just one example) ensure that Japan would be dealing with a major IPC cash crunch late in the war, and therefore to give Japan a strong incentive to win early.
Ah, yes, I do recall that now. My mistake. That is worth considering. It would make the use of a turn counter or game-dial showing the changing situation over time much more relevant to gameplay.
However, I do think my initial response was that this timetable of income reduction on Japan could be redundant. Yes, it would incentivize Japan to win ASAP and early, but are they not already motivated to do that? The longer the war is drawn out the more the Allies (should) grown powerful and the harder it becomes for Japan or Germany to win. An economic drawdown occurs once the Allies start taking territory back. For Japan in particular this system would impose a time-clock on victory and with every tick down the ability for them to win may be doubly hard. They are losing territory, which saps them of money and they are on the clock, which further saps them of money, regardless of whether or not their strategic situation has changed in any real way.
@CWO:
One related aspect of the three-phase analysis that I didn’t really make explicit was the potential idea of having victory conditions which change during the war rather than remaining constant. I haven’t thought about that one in detail, but it might be something to explore to address the “clean end” issue you mentioned.
That sounds interesting. I am reticent to have fluid rules or victory conditions, but I wouldn’t rule it out without consideration. Just means more moving parts.
Just reading through the last two pages on a break at work. One idea which just came to me, for the idea of split theater play (“actively fighting” in two directions instead of just one), is to somehow tweak the games economic system, so that you are rewarded for fighting battles rather than only being rewarded for taking high value territories.
There are several approaches, one I mentioned previously in various threads was to award a “battle bonus” where the attacker is awarded +1 ipc for each successful battle. This ipc is not attached to the territory, so it could conceivably work for sea battles as well. Basically (if using paper money) you place 1 ipcs on the battle board.
This is like a “prize” for the battle. If the attacker prevails they get the battle buck, added directly to their purse. You could do the same if you wanted for the defender. Basically wherever the battle is fought there is always some concrete ipc value at stake.
The rationale would be something like, “we need to grab a headline” to show the public that we’re making good use of their war bonds and war products. You know for home front morale and to demonstrate that the leaders of the nation are “actively fighting” and not allowing the war to stagnate. This was a real motivation in the actual war that encouraged actions which might have been seen as premature, ill timed, or a waste of resources when considered from a purely objective standpoint, but which, from a public relations/morale standpoint was worthwhile. Maybe CWO can think of some relevant examples?
My view is that you need an ipc motivation to get this sort of thing working. I’ve discussed it before in the valueless ipc islands thread. But if you want the Americans to launch and attack for control of some worthless out of the way island, putting a buck at stake is a food way to do this. Similarly, if you want to encourage players to fight narrow battles in the near term, instead of just waiting until they have an overwhelming numbers advantage, then putting a battle buck in the pot might be a good way to do it.
Another thought I had, which is perhaps too radical for some tastes, would be to award actual units rather than just ipcs, each round. With some limited number like 1 land 1 air 1 sea (with the actual unit type determined by a roll) and severely restrict where they can be placed, such as 1 per factory territory. The idea here is that the “bonus” unit doesn’t cost you IPCs, it’s a freebie for the player, but has to be placed somewhere specific. Again it might be too much of a departure from the traditional system. But perhaps something like that could be used to encourage players to mobilize units in two theaters or multiple theaters, instead of just building in one direction?
This would have a similar effect as just restricting where a certain percentage of the total IPCs “must be spent” but would feel like less of a penalty, since the units are in addition to the normal purse, not part of its base. Not sure if I’m describing it in the best way.
Say instead of 33 ipcs of the total 100, have to be spent in the pacific. You just give a bonus which is tied to the factory facility directly. Say +10 ipcs from the battle bonus that have to be spent here. And then you could restrict it to units of a particular type if desired. This round you rolled “air” so the bonus unit must be of that type etc. It’s gamey sure, but it might be a way to get around the normal concentration of force/focus into just one direction (the way A&A players usually try to pick a focus and spend 100% in that direction. Here you could still purchase that way for your normal income, but there would be something extra “the freebie” unit, or “bonus cash” that forced you to commit somethiny the other way too.
What I mean is that you have the “battle bonus” bucks in a separate pile from normal income, but these bucks have to be used in specific ways. It’s not totally up the player to choose the way normal income can be used, but instead determined by a roll or a chart or whatever. You could also separate these battle bonus bucks from the normal production requirements. Like "each factory can produce X normal units, and +1 bonus unit (using the battle bucks.)
Does something like that seem workable?
I’ve played with the +1 ipc battle bonus in AA50 and it typically produced between 3-10 ipcs per nation per round. Everyone had a much greater incentive to “actively fight” because each battle fought put +1 ipcs at stake.
Just reading through the last two pages on a break at work. One idea which just came to me, for the idea of split theater play (“actively fighting” in two directions instead of just one), is to somehow tweak the games economic system, so that you are rewarded for fighting battles rather than only being rewarded for taking high value territories.
There are several approaches, one I mentioned previously in various threads was to award a “battle bonus” where the attacker is awarded +1 ipc for each successful battle. This ipc is not attached to the territory, so it could conceivably work for sea battles as well. Basically (if using paper money) you place 1 ipcs on the battle board.
This is like a “prize” for the battle. If the attacker prevails they get the battle buck, added directly to their purse. You could do the same if you wanted for the defender. Basically wherever the battle is fought there is always some concrete ipc value at stake.
The rationale would be something like, “we need to grab a headline” to show the public that we’re making good use of their war bonds and war products. You know for home front morale and to demonstrate that the leaders of the nation are “actively fighting” and not allowing the war to stagnate. This was a real motivation in the actual war that encouraged actions which might have been seen as premature, ill timed, or a waste of resources when considered from a purely objective standpoint, but which, from a public relations/morale standpoint was worthwhile. Maybe CWO can think of some relevant examples?
My view is that you need an ipc motivation to get this sort of thing working. I’ve discussed it before in the valueless ipc islands thread. But if you want the Americans to launch and attack for control of some worthless out of the way island, putting a buck at stake is a food way to do this. Similarly, if you want to encourage players to fight narrow battles in the near term, instead of just waiting until they have an overwhelming numbers advantage, then putting a battle buck in the pot might be a good way to do it.
I am not too sure about this. I understand the reasoning, but for the most part I feel that tactically the game moves itself along without any need for monetary incentive. I don’t see unreasonable amounts of unit build-up because time and physical spacing are good enough motivators in-and-of-themselves. Besides, no reasonable amount of money would make me take my even moderately outnumbered force into a battle I am not sure I can win. I am going to lose more units than I am going to gain back in IPCs… not to mention that the IPCs I do gain are nothing until they are physically on the board the next turn.
Might it incentivize the taking of Pacific islands? Perhaps, but I thought that is why you make the islands nominally worth something. I think it would also be difficult to differentiate battles… meaning are all battles worth the same bonus? Is 2 Tanks vs 1 infantry in the Belgian Congo worth as much as two giant fleets engaging off the coast of France?
I don’t mean to shoot your idea down, but those are the questions that first come to mind.
@CWO:
One related aspect of the three-phase analysis that I didn’t really make explicit was the potential idea of having victory conditions which change during the war rather than remaining constant. I haven’t thought about that one in detail, but it might be something to explore to address the “clean end” issue you mentioned.
That sounds interesting. I am reticent to have fluid rules or victory conditions, but I wouldn’t rule it out without consideration. Just means more moving parts.
Well, that’s part of what would be implied by political objectives related to the Cold War. For example, the political objective of the Russians wanting to capture Berlin before the Anglo-Americans was definitely on Moscow’s agenda in 1945, but it would have been purely aspirational in 1942 (when Germany was still on the offensive in Russia and the Anglo-Americans weren’t in continental Europe). And it wouldn’t even have been an objective at all for Russia in 1940, when it wasn’t even at war with Germany.
@CWO:
@CWO:
One related aspect of the three-phase analysis that I didn’t really make explicit was the potential idea of having victory conditions which change during the war rather than remaining constant.� I haven’t thought about that one in detail, but it might be something to explore to address the “clean end” issue you mentioned.
That sounds interesting. I am reticent to have fluid rules or victory conditions, but I wouldn’t rule it out without consideration. Just means more moving parts.
Well, that’s part of what would be implied by political objectives related to the Cold War. For example, the political objective of the Russians wanting to capture Berlin before the Anglo-Americans was definitely on Moscow’s agenda in 1945, but it would have been purely aspirational in 1942 (when Germany was still on the offensive in Russia and the Anglo-Americans weren’t in continental Europe). And it wouldn’t even have been an objective at all for Russia in 1940, when it wasn’t even at war with Germany.
Yes, but in the OOB game we have set victory conditions which include the Allies taking Berlin and Tokyo. Even though the USSR didn’t have the ability to take Berlin in 1942 does not mean that isn’t what they would do either given the chance or in the future. To me, the whole point for the Allies in the boardgame is predicated on the “Unconditional Surrender” mandate from the Casablanca conference. Even though the game begins before this event (1943), the political impact of it is sort of just wrapped into the fabric of the game as something intrinsic to Allied motivations and goals.
To me, the Tokyo and Berlin Victory Condition seems pretty inevitable. The game (and history) indicate that the Axis will continue to fight and not surrender, even in the face of overwhelming Allied gains. If that is the case, any other, lesser victory conditions for the Allies seem unnecessary.
@CWO
I understand the reasoning for a negative NO and I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad idea, but I would still be concerned that this would encourage the US to go Pacific even more. I try and hold the islands as long as possible already. If US goes full Pacific that pretty much forces Japan to max protect anyway.
To stop the blitz to Russia a combination of a stronger China, take away a couple JPN planes and add your difficult terrain TTs should slow them down. Maybe allow two movement on coastal TTs and once you’re out of China and past the Urals, Novosibirsk and Kazakstan you jack it back up to 2. Also need to make Russia a little stronger.
@regularkid
good stuff. Looks like the US gets a pretty good boost. How’s Italy doin ?
Haha no prob LHoffman, that’s why we’re here. Gotta shoot some down every now and again.
I guess what I was trying to come up with was some way to quantify that concept Marc mentioned about actively fighting. As you pointed out, a single ipc is not going incentivize a player to recklessly throw away high value units in doomed battles just to snatch up the battle bone. On the other hand, even something small like that might encourage different general play patterns over time, where players are more apt to fight small engagements along the way, instead of just waiting around haha. When we tried it made each battle a little more exciting, and introduced more cash into the game for each player, so the purchase phase was a bit more flexible. Again not sure how well the concept meshes. But I can see how the normal game encourages the stack push and the slow grind, so without something else thrown in there players will probably do what they do already, take their time and build up, move out slowly, withdraw rather than engage etc.
As far as “wow we are doing great, let’s buy more war bonds!!” thing goes, isn’t that kind of exactly what the National Objectives are? “Wow we liberated the Philippines, let’s invest in the war effort and kick Hirohito’s butt all the way back to Tokyo!” or “Da Uncle Yosef is doing good! Look we own the Ukraine and Hungary!” Kinda thing.
That is how I always interpreted it. Mainly because the money is being conjured out of thin air for the majority of NOs. The ones that don’t have to do with shipping lanes or natural resources like oil. The way it is now, if you’re trying to rationalize where that cash is coming from for most of the other NOs, you really have to abstract it into some kind of home front morale/fundraising boost, where momentum on the battlefield somehow translates into actual money.
In reality you don’t usually get money from conquering new land and expanding your territorial reach, not directly anyway, if anything it costs money. But the game doesn’t model that, so I just look at it very abstractly, as if these IPCs were coming from bonds or concomitant productivity increases. Or some kind of national prestige return for the huge ongoing expenditures and debts these warring nations are taking on. At least when the troops are on the march and winning, it’s like money well spent= money recouped/gained back in IPCs during the collect income phase.
The thing that always rubbed me the wrong way with NOs (since they were first introduced in AA50) is that they involve a huge amount of tracking by the players, for a comparatively small payoff. I made my case against National Objectives several times in different threads both here and on the Larry boards. At some point, I guess the concept has become too entrenched and too necessary for game balance to do away with altogether. But that would still be my preference.
I am constantly searching for ways to change National Objectives into Generic Objectives (objectives that work the same way for everyone.) And to preserve the idea of a National Objective (only where necessary) as being much more focused and limited in scope. I’d prefer a scheme where a similar amount of “bonus” money was still introduced, but in a way that’s easier to track.
I think of it from a gameplay perspective. If the game includes National Objectives, not only do you need to be aware of your own, but you need to conside everyone else’s objectives as well. And because none of that information is represented graphically on the map, it demands a pretty onerous amount of memorization from each participant in the game. I accept that this is unavoidable to a certain extent for novelty and to give each nation it’s own unique flavor. I just think it could be accomplished with fewer total objectives. I think 3 each would be manageable, and then make up the difference either by giving those NOs a higher value, or by augmenting it with generic objectives shared by all. Such as for control of VCs, or battle bonuses, or what have you.
Ps. CWOMarc and LHoffman are covering a lot of ground in their exchanges, with critical analyses that are definitely driving towards the kind of broader victory conditions and play patterns I’m interested in pursuing. I don’t want to sidetrack that discussion by interjection too many ideas at once. But I did want to mention just one thing, since I think you guys might be able to help with the historical grounding.
Do you like India (Or UK Pacific) the way its handled OOB?
Do you like it as a separate player nation?
Would you nix it and just make the British into a single faction with a single economy?
I ask because it seems to me that India in its normal OOB role (game play terms) is rather less significant than it should be. Their sole contribution seems to be against Japan, and in preparing defenses against the ‘inevitable’ JDoW. But in the actual war India’s contribution was pretty important to the European conflict too. What I mean is that units from “the Pacific economy” are rarely used in North African or Italian campaigns. Even in the middle east it is usually UK Europe sending units to prop up India, whereas the historical reality was basically the reverse right?
I’m not terribly familiar with the history here, but from what I’ve read casually, it seems like UK Pacific units should be pushing West a lot more than they do in the OOB game. I’m just wondering, what’s the point of having them as a separate economy, if it isn’t really used to model that history? It seems like it would be much simpler if they were either a separate Nation (with distinct sculpts the way Anzac is) or else just collapsed into the broader British Empire. I suppose the rationale OOB might be that Indian units are already in place in Africa and the Med etc, by the time of the start date. So some of those units in the UK Europe set up charts, are actually UK Pacific starting units under normal British (European) command?
Anyway, it all seems rather complicated. If we want to split economies by theater, it’d probably be better to do this for all relevant player nations, instead of making it UK exclusive, or just drop the idea altogether. And I don’t like the name “UK” for a Pacific faction to begin with, so there’s that as well haha.
I bring it up because it seems like it would be important to determine the total number of actual player nations involved, when we outline the victory conditions generally. Some of the OOB problems we are trying to solve might go away or be rather different if the UK Pacific faction was handled differently, or if it was eliminated altogether.
Anyway, what do you all think about India?
Would you maybe rather have split economies for everyone? Or for everyone relevant, like US, UK, and Russia? That might work, and might solve some issues with the Japan vs USA, Japan vs Russia situation. Though again seems like it might be more complicated than its worth.
pps. another thought. It was mentioned already on the previous page by LHoffman in the context of “splitting the US” the way UK has theater specific economies, though he came down against it. I feel the same way. It would also be harder to track since the boxed game doesn’t come with any special roundels for the US, the way it does those Union Jack counter chips for UK Pacific. If you wanted to control the spending of income, I’d do that on the placement side somehow, the way Jennifer suggested. X IPCs, or X units must be placed on one side or the other, or maybe both. It could perhaps be tied to the factory unit itself?
This is something that hasn’t been tried yet in A&A, or at least not at full scale. I mean the idea that Major Factories have an IPC spending cap, as well as a production cap. Or perhaps its not a cap, but a minimum, or an allowance. Something similar has been suggested with regard to minors, but there the restriction was by unit type, not by the total number of IPCs spent. I’m not sure how this might look without breaking the games essential feel, but say you had like a total IPC cap, the way we have a cap on total production per factory. Where instead of breaking up the map into two basic sides/arenas and restrict the spending that way, you could break it up into smaller regional arenas (determined by factory locations) and restrict the spending locally instead of by theater. This would necessarily ground/distribute the spending where the production is actually located.
Factories somehow controlling the flow of industrial production “money” that is used to spawn units in specific territories/areas of the game map consistently. The total money spent on the units I mean, not just the total number of units (as it is OOB). Spending based on some kind of cap in total IPCs per factory unit, or allowance in IPCs spent, not just a total free for all, spent anywhere, the way it is right now. Even if this money was like a bonus on top of the normal system, but grounded by the production facility units themselves, it would force at least some spending to be distributed across all the factories instead of focused on just one. That’s an idea, but again might be too radical.
It just seems odd how you have such a concentration of income into some factories, at the expense of others in A&A. I mean wouldn’t nearly all the facilities that a nation controls be producing arms in any given span of time? Part of me likes the idea of factories somehow tying down purchases over time to specific localities. This might be along a Pacific side Europe side map wide division, but also work in a more nuanced way, in smaller regions. Stripped down the idea here is that factories generate IPC money, but the additional ipcs that they generate have to be spent at THAT facility.
IPC is such a bizarrely all inclusive term in this game. It is industrial production capacity, but also resources, oil, minerals, man hours etc all rolled into one.
As Marc pointed out, there were ways for nations to increase their production capacity that didn’t necessitate conquering new territories. But in the game the only way to increase your IPC total is to take land from the enemy or from neutrals. If not the factory unit, than I guess what I’m proposing is a unit or marker that generates money or expands the economy directly. Not a moveable resource scheme, since that involves a whole other set of challenges. I’m thinking something simpler, just a token on the map that generates cash (that must be spent at THAT location) which can be placed to anchor the purchasing gameplay.
It doesn’t have to replace the current economic/purchasing system, just augment it in a way that allows us more control over where spending occurs (in ways that are more focused than allowed by the current OOB factory units/purchasing system.) I wonder if something like that could work? This doesn’t have to be a purchaseable unit. Instead it could just be pre-set. Or determined by a timeline or based on a table tied to the game round etc. It could be maybe destroyed if captured, or removed in ways similar to the ways it is generated (via table or timeline). Or I supposed it could be purchasable? Like if we want the Americans building units in the Pacific, you put one of those tokens in the territories that want to serve as anchors, and it more or less guarantees that at least some units will be created in that region each round. Or say you don’t want Japan to spawn an endless train of units from minor factories in China, then you just don’t put any of those tokens in coastal China, have it located on the island of Japan. Same deal with Russia, perhaps they get 1 such token per round, or 1 per round after a certain round, so that their economy increases over time, but that increase is also tied to specific locations/regions where the units get mobilized.
This doesn’t totally solve the essential problem of units “going the wrong way” or marching off in wildly “ahistorical” total one dimensional directions. That problem goes beyond just the purchasing location where units are spawned, and moves into a broader “movement” phase issues, where units wander around the map after they’re purchased/spawned. There’s probably no way to really force players to play somewhere, unless you include a movement restriction/allowance of some sort. But production restrictions/allowances could get you at least half way there. Units are more likely to be distributed across the board, instead of concentrated all in one spot. I just think it would be helpful, to have an actual token or physical unit of some sort. Or to use the existing production units somehow, like the factory unit, that way its graphically represented on the game board.
Right now you can be awarded money for conquering land, or achieving objectives, but the money never has any strings attached. What if instead of “+10 ipcs”, an objective read something like “+10 IPC, to spend in Central USA” where the objective bonuses counted during the purchase units phase, rather than the collect income phase? Things like that would allow you to control the flow a bit more, even if you wanted to stay within an NO type framework.
Just trying to think of ways you could handle different issues using a similar mechanic. Something that could cover the “war time” economy idea for USA, or the ramping up of production for Russia, while encouraging USA to spend in both theaters issue, and still prevent Japan from spamming mech minors in coastal China.
@CWO
@regularkid
good stuff. Looks like the US gets a pretty good boost. How’s Italy doin ?
Barney, Italy actually tends to do pretty well with NOs, as it turns out, since Germany is less likely to neglect the Mediterranean. The net result of the NOs in the mediterranean is to make life a little harder for Germany (kind of the point) and to make the Mediterranean a more active (and enjoyable) theater.
Do you like India (Or UK Pacific) the way its handled OOB?
Do you like it as a separate player nation?
Would you nix it and just make the British into a single faction with a single economy?
Personally, I think the UK should have a single economy. The G40 rulebook gives no rationale for the concept of splitting the UK into two economies, and I can’t think of what this concept would supposedly represent in the real world. The British Empire/Commonwealth wasn’t divided into a Western Empire and an Eastern Empire (the way ancient Rome was at one point), despite the old story about a schoolchild who once wrote “The sun never sets on the British Empire because the sunsets in the west and the Empire is in the east.” The pieces of the British Empire/Commonwealth at the time could more logically be classed by status rather than geography. There was Britain’s homeland territories (the British isles), there were various gradations of colonial and/or mandate territories, and there were the self-governing Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Eire and (technically) Newfoundland (which had reverted to rule from London at its own request during the Depression).
India was certainly an economic powerhouse (it wasn’t called “the jewel of the Crown” for nothing), and it had a peculiar status within the Empire; I think it was technically a “Raj”. If I recall correctly, British coins of the time likewise reflected the fact that India was a special case: George VI was captioned as being “Dei Gratia Rex et Ind. Imp.” – King by the Grace of God and Emperor of India." But despite all that, India was still fundamentally an imperial possession. During WWI, Britain had dangled before the Indian people the prospect of India being granted Dominion status (alongside the so-called “white Dominions”) after the war as a reward for its wartime service, but ultimately Britain only did so after WWII – too late to prevent India from breaking away.
I think that the “two-economy” concept in G40 is probably a warped holdover from the original A&A Pacific game, in which the “British” player technically controlled three separate entities: India, Australia, and the UK’s Southeast Asian territories like Hong Kong. I can’t think of any logical reason for the split economy in terms that are purely consistent with G40’s own design. It can’t be based on the fact that the UK has significant IPC-producing territories on both the E40 map and the P40 map because the same thing can be said about the US and the UK. And it can’t be based on the fact that the UK is a full player power in both E40 and P40 because so is the US. The argument that the UK, as a global empire, has “global responsibilities” likewise wouldn’t explain why its income is split; to me, that argument would actually support the opposite conclusion: that the UK needs to have as much flexibility as possible in spending its global income. I’d also argue that the UK player is presented with a much more interesting and challenging task by being given free reign to treat his economy as s single pot, because that way he’s faced with the same hard decisions that Britain’s leaders faced in WWII: how much of Britain’s resources to allocate to each theatre. (The decision to send Prince of Wales and Repulse to the Far East, where Japan blew them out of the water as they tried to defend Singapore, is an example of this kind of difficult resource-allocation problem.)
@CWO:
Personally, I think the UK should have a single economy. The G40 rulebook gives no rationale for the concept of splitting the UK into two economies, and I can’t think of what this concept would supposedly represent in the real world.
I think that the “two-economy” concept in G40 is probably a warped holdover from the original A&A Pacific game, in which the “British” player technically controlled three separate entities: India, Australia, and the UK’s Southeast Asian territories like Hong Kong. I can’t think of any logical reason for the split economy in terms that are purely consistent with G40’s own design. It can’t be based on the fact that the UK has significant IPC-producing territories on both the E40 map and the P40 map because the same thing can be said about the US and the UK. And it can’t be based on the fact that the UK is a full player power in both E40 and P40 because so is the US. The argument that the UK, as a global empire, has “global responsibilities” likewise wouldn’t explain why its income is split; to me, that argument would actually support the opposite conclusion: that the UK needs to have as much flexibility as possible in spending its global income. I’d also argue that the UK player is presented with a much more interesting and challenging task by being given free reign to treat his economy as s single pot, because that way he’s faced with the same hard decisions that Britain’s leaders faced in WWII: how much of Britain’s resources to allocate to each theatre. (The decision to send Prince of Wales and Repulse to the Far East, where Japan blew them out of the water as they tried to defend Singapore, is an example of this kind of difficult resource-allocation problem.)
Excellent analysis Marc. I am less well versed on the political and historical aspects of India as a British possession and how that relationship played out during the war, but this commentary does a great job of explaining the entire situation.
To offer my thoughts on Black_Elk’s question… I agree with Marc. I have never liked the split UK economy, just accepted it as a reality. I also haven’t done any historical reading to debate it. I think it is annoying and would love to see it done away with, if only to simplify things more.
If the UK is re-united as one, it means, what, 17 IPCs added to the UK’s income? This is a decent amount… even more with NOs and the DEI. This brings up a couple considerations. First, as I understand it, Sealion in G40 is a plausible strategy. Personally, I find it too much of a gamble and have never tried it, but it seems like other people do. 17 extra IPCs to spend should sink that possibility, correct? I realize the UK will still have to balance spending between the East and West, but now (if in dire need) the UK has much more cash from which to throw one way or the other. That is not a criticism, just a consideration.
One thing I would like about a re-united UK economy is the flexibility it gives to spend more in India and either send units to N. Africa or fight Japan more aggressively. This alone could solve some of Japan’s push to Moscow because India is no longer just a medium sized roadblock that is mostly immobile, but a potentially powerful production center that can easily fight toe-to-toe with Japan on the Asian continent. In short it should keep them more honest.
You make a good point CWO. In our G39 game you can play some of UK’s countries as Ind. countries. But we always play as UK controls Canada, London, and South Africa. FEC has India and Aussies on there own. But UK London can buy 2 extra pieces each for Canada, India, and Australia. 1 extra piece for South Africa. Also they control The Minor factory in Cairo if its bought. So that’s 3 more pieces.
Canada, FEC and Aussies do get there own income too.
So UK has to make some serious decisions like you have stated were to buy pieces and place. If it wasn’t for UK London buying pieces for India, India would fall every time.
Not trying to hijack this thread but just stating that UK is playing the whole map. But FEC and Aussies do decide what to do with pieces.
Its funny when you are begging for pieces and hoppin US sends LL too.
I suppose removing the Dominions of Canada and South Africa from the UK economy would balance things out a little and give the UK player flexibility to spend heavy in England or India for a turn should the need arise. In that case I would downgrade the major in India to a minor and add a minor to West India (since the UK will lose SA minor).
I do think it is worth shifting the game into a 4-block dynamic, each with their own agenda and victory conditions (in this manner there is competition between members of the Axis and the Allies to finish the game with the highest score). This could create some tension between partners, as Japan simply pouring resources into Siberia to let Germany vanquish the USSR will allow the German player to win the game alone.
Yes, in game there is a minor in S AF and India.
But I believe UK can get to big some times. They just start pumpin in S AF and FEC ( also LL from US ) and hardly buy in London until later turns ( with Russia’s help against Germany ). It ain’t right when S AF just keeps pumpin out tanks.
Then when they get Italy under control then its lites out. UK can make ICP’s in the 50’s. US just blasts the Pacific and then its harder for Japan to really take India.
Just saying.
The thing that always rubbed me the wrong way with NOs (since they were first introduced in AA50) is that they involve a huge amount of tracking by the players, for a comparatively small payoff. […] I am constantly searching for ways to change National Objectives into Generic Objectives (objectives that work the same way for everyone.) And to preserve the idea of a National Objective (only where necessary) as being much more focused and limited in scope. I’d prefer a scheme where a similar amount of “bonus” money was still introduced, but in a way that’s easier to track.
I think of it from a gameplay perspective. If the game includes National Objectives, not only do you need to be aware of your own, but you need to conside everyone else’s objectives as well. And because none of that information is represented graphically on the map, it demands a pretty onerous amount of memorization from each participant in the game. I accept that this is unavoidable to a certain extent for novelty and to give each nation it’s own unique flavor. I just think it could be accomplished with fewer total objectives. I think 3 each would be manageable, and then make up the difference either by giving those NOs a higher value, or by augmenting it with generic objectives shared by all. Such as for control of VCs, or battle bonuses, or what have you.
I understand where you are coming from here. I agree that NOs, as they stand, are not entirely consistent or scientific. I often wonder how much mathematical consideration was given to the NO impact when G40 was designed… Any consideration? Or was it simply a historic premise and a perceived need for the money so they were adopted based on what sounded/looked best?
For example, the UK (Europe) only has one NO totaling 5 IPCs. Italy has four NOs totaling 17 IPCs. ANZAC has two NOs totaling 10 IPCs. Did the designers just run out of ideas for Britain? Did they think that Britain has a sufficient cashflow and didn’t need bonuses? Did Britain really not have any other significant National Objectives or strategic motivations in the European war? Besides which, the UK Europe NO is rather bland and unimaginative (all original territories). Keeping all original territories is already the goal of every player.
A full 20 IPCs of US income is based on NOs that involve keeping original territories. These are territories that are basically unassailable by Japan or Germany in my experience. This tells me that NOs are not entirely random but that some are integral to a Power’s ability to fight the war.
Tracking your own can be difficult enough, but strategically you have to be aware of everyone else’s too. Indicating them on the map somehow is a great idea. Cards are good, but they are less graphically descriptive. As for a set amount for each Power… I am neither for or against. It kind of goes back to my question about if some Powers have more because they need more money or more strategic incentive or because the designers ran out of ideas?
And I don’t like the name “UK” for a Pacific faction to begin with, so there’s that as well haha.
Me neither. It is dumb. We just call it India during play.
Would you maybe rather have split economies for everyone? Or for everyone relevant, like US, UK, and Russia? That might work, and might solve some issues with the Japan vs USA, Japan vs Russia situation. Though again seems like it might be more complicated than its worth.
Haha… ABSOLUTELY NOT! As I said before, with the UK it was more of an acceptance thing. I certainly don’t want to do it deliberately to another country. For the US it would make sense, sort of, but I would never advocate it. For the USSR I think it would be both disastrous (for both the USSR and Japan) and unrealistic.
If you wanted to control the spending of income, I’d do that on the placement side somehow, the way Jennifer suggested. X IPCs, or X units must be placed on one side or the other, or maybe both. It could perhaps be tied to the factory unit itself?
This is something that hasn’t been tried yet in A&A, or at least not at full scale. I mean the idea that Major Factories have an IPC spending cap, as well as a production cap. Or perhaps its not a cap, but a minimum, or an allowance. […] This would necessarily ground/distribute the spending where the production is actually located.It just seems odd how you have such a concentration of income into some factories, at the expense of others in A&A. I mean wouldn’t nearly all the facilities that a nation controls be producing arms in any given span of time?
Distributing production (evenly) where you have factories or somehow placement tied to the relative size of those factories seems reasonable, but I do not like the idea. I think the freedom to place where you need and want is more important than the forced realism of such a restriction. Like I have said before, at this scale of strategic gameplay, I think you begin to straddle the line between the more realistic tactical and logistic considerations governing a war and the simplifications needed for ease of play. To me, a factory rule like this only complicates the ease of play.
My general philosophy for A&A rules is that I believe in limits, not mandates. Same with factories, limits (based on either the major/minor distinction or the old way of territory value) are reasonable in that you don’t want Germany dropping all 70 IPCs of new units in Stalingrad after they capture it. This forces a spread of unit placement all by itself. But to mandate that Germany always place a certain number of units in certain territories puts a handicap on strategic planning. For the USSR this would not be a huge issue since all their factories are more or less on the front lines. But for the UK this could be especially problematic. This would defeat the strategic financial flexibility that Marc referenced in combining India with Britain and it would also dictate purchases to some extent. Suppose the UK must put at least 2 units in their S. Africa factory per turn. What if Africa is basically won? What if the UK needs units in England for an invasion? The UK will be out 6 IPCs every turn because that is the bare minimum they can spend to satisfy the factory requirement. Same situation for the factory in Canada. Now they are out 6 more IPCs.
As Marc pointed out, there were ways for nations to increase their production capacity that didn’t necessitate conquering new territories. But in the game the only way to increase your IPC total is to take land from the enemy or from neutrals. If not the factory unit, than I guess what I’m proposing is a unit or marker that generates money or expands the economy directly. Not a moveable resource scheme, since that involves a whole other set of challenges. I’m thinking something simpler, just a token on the map that generates cash (that must be spent at THAT location) which can be placed to anchor the purchasing gameplay.
My rationale for the income system OOB is that it already accounts for peak economy. Increase or decrease in economic power is reflected in the taking and losing of territory as the game progresses. This is a convenient but simple way to account for production increase over time. My impression, without hard facts on hand, is that the only nations to very significantly increase their productive capacity between 1940 and 1945 were the Soviet Union and the United States. The production/economy centers of the United States were mostly removed from the war and unassailable. So the jump of the US economy to 80 IPCs right away is understandable. The US never really shrank territorially nor did their industrial base fall under assault.
The USSR is a more of a unique case. Even as they were compressed and losing territory they actually began producing more. I am in the middle of the book Stalingrad by Anthony Bevor and just last night read about how German tank production in 1942 was (I believe) 500 tanks per month. Hitler simply refused to believe that the Soviets were reportedly producing 1200 tanks per month. In fact, this estimate was much too low. By September of 1942 (with the USSR at its territorial lowest point of the war), they were approaching 2000 per month in tank production.
In short, I don’t believe we need an extra IPC generating element. I feel that tying these undefined IPCs to some sort of expanding or contracting mechanism may be a little too complex and fluid for proper integration into the game. What would this generation be tied to, if anything? If we scrip a racheted increase over time, we are essentially trying to push the game in one direction and remove the initiative away from strategy and towards… fate? Similar to the time-clock that ratchets down Japan’s IPCs, but this time it ratchets them up (mostly for the Allies from my perspective). Control of the ability to produce would be taken from the players and set with some element separate from the physical board.
This doesn’t totally solve the essential problem of units “going the wrong way” or marching off in wildly “ahistorical” total one dimensional directions. That problem goes beyond just the purchasing location where units are spawned, and moves into a broader “movement” phase issues, where units wander around the map after they’re purchased/spawned. There’s probably no way to really force players to play somewhere, unless you include a movement restriction/allowance of some sort. But production restrictions/allowances could get you at least half way there.
Again, Limits vs Mandates… it is not my intent with rule revisions to script the game or to further impose on players what they must do. I would rather see mechanisms that foster more realistic decisions and options.
Right now you can be awarded money for conquering land, or achieving objectives, but the money never has any strings attached. What if instead of “+10 ipcs”, an objective read something like “+10 IPC, to spend in Central USA” where the objective bonuses counted during the purchase units phase, rather than the collect income phase? Things like that would allow you to control the flow a bit more, even if you wanted to stay within an NO type framework.
This isn’t a bad idea. I am not sure how you would want to structure it, but NOs may be the most proper place. Since they are essentially bonus money, NOs could have strings attached… as in the units must be placed in a certain territory. I am willing to try that. However, doing so may likewise split the money pool to the point that it influences unit purchases.
